Look out for long lines of hackers heading for your firewall

from here and here

There are some very mixed signals going on lately. On the one hand Russia is doing a lot worse against Ukraine than anyone imagined. On the other hand, we're getting warnings of possible "cyberstrikes". How effective should we expect those cyberstrikes to be, all things considered?

In case you weren't already sick of crypto

from here

I can't resist a good pun. Or a bad one, apparently.

And everybody elses

from here

I actually have zero difficulty imagining Mark Zuckerberg as a helicopter parent. Just look at how much his company spies on complete strangers. So the idea that Facebook wanted to target children around the same age as Zuckerberg's oldest makes it difficult not to see a possible connection between the two.

How Zuckerberg will make VR the future of Facebook

from here

Maybe I'm crazy, but this kind of dark pattern in their support seems like just the kind of thing Zuckerberg would pull to drive adoption among those who would otherwise not be interested in virtual reality, and thereby aid in bringing Zuckerberg's VR plans for Facebook to fruition. All they have to do is gradually disable people's accounts and wait for them to "migrate" to Oculus.

The more leaks the better

from here

I'm not sure if this conspiracy theory about Facebook's leaked memo is far enough out there for Conspiracy Keanu, but I'm using it anyway. Whether they intended it or not, it plays right into their plan.

I wonder what they do for dental

from here

I suppose the hackers that stole the data could sell it and monetize it that way, but haven't the companies making these vaccines already committed to not gouging customers in this particular case? How much profit can be made by 3rd parties if 1st parties are already forgoing most of theirs?

I forced a bot to read thousands of press releases ...

from here

It really is hard to believe the things they say in response to controversy have been written by an actual human.

Now how will we protect our brainwaves?

from here

Thanks to Rob Rosenberger for making me think about tin-foil hats in connection with Norsk Hydro's ransomware incident.

Don't you dare sneeze on me, human

from here

It sounds absurd, I know, but if they can encode malware into a DNA strand then, by the strangeness of computer science, there exists (at least in theory) a computer that would interpret my DNA as a virus, and another (theoretical) computer that would interpret your DNA as a virus, and so on and so forth.

For each sequence of symbols there exists a Turing machine for which that sequence is a virus.

Happy "I don't know if this is really your birthday" day

from here

You either tell sites the truth and hope attackers are clever enough to think you're lying, or you tell sites a lie and hope your friends are clever enough to remember the truth.

Like picking on your schoolyard crush

from here

I know it sounds absurd, but think about what happened after they caught Sabu, or the Mirai botnet creators. It kinda makes me think the reason they're dragging Marcus through the courts is because they desperately want someone with his capabilities working for them.

Are you feeling lucky, cypherpunk?

from here

They didn't, of course (the cops invent charges, not technologies), but crooks who underestimated the trace-ability of  bitcoins have gone to jail all the same.

Or vice versa

from here

There's a long running trend of not trusting people to do the right thing and instead designing devices in such a way that they aren't susceptible to human error. That was great when it came to preventing catastrophes, but when it creeps into banal things like when to drink water you realize how far the bar has been lowered when it comes to trusting each other to act sensibly.

On the other hand, the more technological crutches we have, the less we need to actually engage our brains, so maybe we're creating a positive feedback loop that is causing a race to the bottom of human intellect.

If only all privacy invasions could be so delicious

from here

I suppose a close second might be giving up your passwords for candy bars.

Methinks the US Government doth protest too much

from here

If it's true that Americans first started to wonder about a connection between Kaspersky and Russian intelligence in 2012, then it presents an interesting timeline, since the indirect connection between McAfee and US intelligence was revealed just one year earlier.

Drop dead gorgeous dead drops

found on Imgur

I mean, if I were on the lookout for hidden messages, that kind of hiding place might make me forget what I was looking for.

One good conspiracy theory deserves another

from here

I'm sure we've all heard the idea that AV companies are actually the ones behind the viruses. Well, maybe there actually is a conspiracy but going the other way? I mean, a number of security 'experts' do seem to be rather chummy with the blackhats. Maybe they're hoping for a cut of the profits.

When Israel hacks an antivirus company

from here

Well, it is a conspiracy theory. Is it worthy of Conspiracy Keanu? You be the judge.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the two countries involved in Stuxnet are also involved in indicting the company that uncovered it.

The secret purpose of The Great Firewall of China

found on Memecenter

On the other hand, perhaps instead of making them smarter, it's designed to help identify the smarter ones so that they can be conscripted into China's cyberwarfare unit.

Perverse incentives for security updates

found on Quick Meme

There's a kernel of truth in this conspiracy theory. When Sun has figured out a way to monetize attempts to update their software (by nagging you and then pre-checking a checkbox to install a 3rd party toolbar) then there's something kind of suspicious about Java requiring a security update - the argument could be made that they have a financial incentive to leave a few vulnerabilities in the product in order to force users to go through the install process all over again and in at least some cases forget to uncheck the checkbox for that toolbar.